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At route step and in irregular columns, the regiment moved forward by platoons. Unknown officers stood along the way to direct, for the regiment's platoon leaders had no knowledge of the way. Thus a mile or more was covered by a regiment that looked disorganized and spectral in the darkness. Then the aspect changed somewhat. Whiffs of salt air prepared the soldiers.
In fact, in the midst of the battle, the Prussians, commanded by the king in person, attacked the corps of Marshal Ney with such fury that it fell back, but the conscripts did not take flight. They withstood the fire, rallied by platoons, and flanked the enemy, crying with all their might, "Vive l'Empereur."
R.W. Edge, T.R.L. Gibson, R.B. Rawson, C.P. Shilton, R.W. Sanders, L.W. Mandy, and J.S. Plumer came to us for the first time from England. At the same time a large party of men, arriving at Monchy Breton, had enabled us to reconstitute "C" Company, so that we now had four Companies of three platoons each, and enough officers for two Battalions. Lieut.
R.E., two platoons of pioneers, and the 2/5th Field Ambulance. It reached its position of assembly without serious opposition, though a detachment which went through the village of Kulonieh met some enemy posts. These, to use the brigadier's phrase, were 'silently dealt with. It was a fine feat to get the two brigades of Londoners into their positions of deployment well up to time.
Mark on its top, and out to where the boats lie moored; and other platoons are as constantly arriving from the gondolas and joining the great throng.
This unsavoury residence housed two platoons of D Company, Company Headquarters, and Stobie, our doctor, with the Regimental Aid Post. In construction the dug-out, which indeed was typical of many, was a corridor with wings opening off, about 40 feet deep and some 30 yards long, with 4 entrances, on each of which stood double sentries day and night.
The news of the Commanding Officer's return had already spread throughout the Battalion. We got our platoons entrained, and then proceeded to the officers' carriages. It was rumoured that Colonel Best-Dunkley was going to travel by a particular carriage. You should have seen how that carriage was boycotted! Nobody would go into it.
A Company had two platoons in the front line trench 41, some 100 yards from the enemy, and two platoons in a support line called '41 support. The trenches themselves were well-built and revetted with sand bags, and dry enough even during the wettest weather. We had in these days only small shelters the deep dugout was unknown.
At last, toward sundown, we stopped at the Porta Cavalleggieri, where, thanks to our lascia passare, we were detained but a minute, and then we were in Rome. Over us hung the great bulging dome of St. Peter's, golden with the last rays of sunset. The pillars of the gigantic colonnade of Bernini, as we jolted along, "seemed to be marching by," in broad platoons.
How we ever found our homes is still a mystery, and yet by 10 p.m. we were all comfortably settled in quarters. We were joined the next morning by the two remaining platoons, 2nd Lieuts. Mould and Farrer.
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